urban agriculture

77 Pages·2015·5.44 MB·English

URBAN AGRICULTURE

'hype or reality?'

Scaling urban agriculture initiatives:
Evidence from the San Francisco Metropolitan Area
URBAN AGRICULTURE
'hype or reality?'

Scaling urban agriculture initiatives:
Evidence from the San Francisco- Metropolitan Area

Master thesis Economic Geography

Author: Maureen de Haan
Student number: 3698629
Email: [email protected]
Date: August 17th 2015
University: Utrecht University, the Netherlands
Faculty: Geosciences
Address: Heidelberglaan 2
3584 CS Utrecht, the Netherlands

Supervisor Utrecht University Prof. dr. V.A.J.M. Schutjens
Email: [email protected]

Supervisor NOST in San Francisco Ms. N. Chatein
Email: [email protected]
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Preface
Here is it, the final piece of my Master Studies Economic Geography. To be honest, writing this
thesis was the most difficult part of my entire study time. It was a painstaking process to investigate
a new and fragmented topic which consumed a lot of my time and energy. However, during this
process I have also learned a lot about myself and about conducting an explorative research. What is
at the end, in my opinion the most important outcome of this thesis process.
My internship at the Netherlands Office for Science Technology (NOST) in San Francisco from
February till Augustus 2014 was a good a starting point for this thesis research. During this time I was
able to get a better picture of the current developments of urban agriculture in general and in the
San Francisco Bay Area and other cities in the United States and Canada (Portland, Seattle and
Vancouver) in particular. Through all the urban farms tours, and subject related events, (informal)
meetings, Skype calls and roundtables I got more feeling with this very diverse and complex subject.
I would like to thank all the people in the Unites States and The Netherlands who provided me input
for this thesis research during my internship, including the respondents of the surveys.
Additionally, I would like to thank all the people of the Dutch Consulate who made this internship
unforgettable and a special thanks to my supervisor in San Francisco: Natasha Chatlein for all her
enthusiasm and support during my stay in beautiful San Francisco.
Furthermore, I would like to thank my supervisor in Utrecht: Veronique Schutjens for all her critical
and supportive feedback and mental support during this entire process. I would also like to thank Jan
Maarten de Vet for helping me out in critical times. Our Skype sessions and your helpful feedback
have regained my confidence again. Additionally, without the encouragement and help of my lovely
parents, sister and dear friends I wouldn't have survived this tough time. They were willing to hear all
my stories and helped me out when it was necessary. Thank you all!
And last but not least, I would like to thank the UB Tijgers: Jopy, Inge, Rosie, Stefan, Thomas and Tom
for all their advice, (mental) support and the fun we had during these last couple of months. Our time
at the library together and the other activities beyond has brought us closer together, which makes
it surely a pleasurable end of being a Geography student at Utrecht University.

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Summary
Today, urban agriculture initiatives are flourishing in cities in the Global North. The increasing
population in cities including concerns about food security and the growing pressure on natural
resources, has moved urban agriculture from an issue at the edge of public to once at its center in
the past few years.

To understand of social innovations as urban agriculture hold promise and can tackle these growing
concerns in our society, this thesis research aims to get a first impression of the scaling of urban
agriculture initiatives and the mechanisms behind this process is by focussing on a leading local food
in the world: the San Francisco Metropolitan Area.

This is first done by conducting a literature study to understand how food-producing activities in and
around cities take place and are manifested in initiatives in the Global North today. And second by
conducting a literature study to understand how initiatives within a social innovation could
theoretically scale. And third by conducting an exploratory case study in the San Francisco
Metropolitan Area to get some first insight in to what extent urban agriculture initiatives are trying to
increase impact (scaling) and what this influences.

The outcomes of the literature studies show that urban agriculture is really divers and that urban
agriculture initiatives are manifested in various types of initiatives, both inside and outside the
traditional market, in the Global North today. Subsequently, the still limited literature of scaling
shows that scaling is a broad concept whereby social initiatives increase impacts in both a
quantitative and qualitative manner by growing their organizations and/or spreading the idea (social
innovation) further. This process is the outcome of different factors related to the organization of
the social initiative, the leading individuals and the environment in which the initiative operates.

The empirical analyses have shown that urban agriculture initiatives in the San Francisco
Metropolitan Area scale in all the different ways as founded in academic literature. All the urban
agriculture initiatives surveyed are trying to increase the impact of urban agriculture by scaling up
and to a lesser extent by scaling deep, both through spreading the idea further and to a lesser extent
in growing their organizations.

In addition, the empirical analyses gave little insights into the factors that influence how urban
agriculture initiatives scale. Only a weak relation has been found between the market engagement of
urban agriculture initiatives and the way scaling is conducted via spreading the idea or growing the
organization. However some relations between the scaling of urban agriculture initiatives in general
and the characteristics of leading individuals have been founded. Based on this, it can be tentatively
concluded that the motivation, capacity and relationships of leading individuals influences or urban
agriculture initiatives scale.

Furthermore, it became clear that the external environment plays an important role in the scaling of
urban agriculture initiatives. Urban agriculture initiatives in the Global North are (still) small in scale
and most activities are not self-sustaining and are depending of non-paid efforts and financial
support. The environment thus both facilitates and constrains the scaling of urban agriculture
initiatives by the (lack of) provision of resources and support.

Based on this status quo of urban agriculture and the initiatives in the San Francisco Metropolitan
Area, it seems to be plausible that feeding a significant amount of the urban population is rather a
hype than reality today. However , through the scaling of urban agriculture initiatives that see food
provision rather as a mean to tackle other social (urban) issues, urban agriculture holds more
promise in tackling social (urban) issues and in creating more liveable and sustainable cities.
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Content

1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................................... 7
1.1. Societal problem ........................................................................................................................... 8
1.2. The research framework .............................................................................................................. 9
1.3. Relevance ................................................................................................................................... 10
1.3.1. Societal relevance .......................................................................................................... 10
1.3.2. Scientific relevance ........................................................................................................ 11
1.4. Outline of the thesis ................................................................................................................... 11
2. Exploring urban agriculture(initiatives): a theoretical overview .............................................................13
2.1. A brief history of food production in cities ................................................................................ 14
2.2. Exploring urban agriculture today .............................................................................................. 16
2.2.1. Economic activities .............................................................................................................. 16
2.2.2. Location ............................................................................................................................... 16
2.2.3. Areas .................................................................................................................................... 17
2.2.4. Scale ..................................................................................................................................... 17
2.2.5. Products ............................................................................................................................... 18
2.2.6. Destination .......................................................................................................................... 18
2.3. Urban agriculture initiatives today ............................................................................................. 19
2.3.1. Residential gardening .......................................................................................................... 19
2.3.2. Community gardening ......................................................................................................... 20
2.3.3. Guerrilla gardening .............................................................................................................. 20
2.3.4. Non-profit and institutional gardening ............................................................................... 21
2.3.5. Green infrastructure ............................................................................................................ 21
2.3.6. Commercial/ for-profit farming ........................................................................................... 22
2.4. Conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 22
3. Scaling social initiatives: a theoretical overview .....................................................................................23
3.1. Exploring the scaling concept ..................................................................................................... 24
3.2. Understanding the mechanisms behind scaling: Gartner's conceptual framework of venture
creation ............................................................................................................................................. 26
3.3. The role of the organization in scaling social initiatives ............................................................. 27
3.4. The role of leading individuals in scaling social initiatives ......................................................... 29
3.5. The role of the environment in scaling social initiatives ............................................................ 29
3.6. Conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 30
4. Methodology ...........................................................................................................................................31
4.1. Research design .......................................................................................................................... 32
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4.2. Location & research population ................................................................................................. 32
4.3. Data collection ............................................................................................................................ 34
4.4. Operationalization ...................................................................................................................... 35
4.4.1. Dependent variable ............................................................................................................. 35
4.4.2. Independent variables ......................................................................................................... 35
4.4.3. Additional (control) variables .............................................................................................. 37
4.5. Method of analysis ..................................................................................................................... 38
4.6. Validity and reliability ................................................................................................................. 38
5. Scaling urban agriculture initiatives: case study evidence from the San Francisco – Metropolitian
Area .............................................................................................................................................................41
5.1. Scaling urban agriculture initiatives ........................................................................................... 42
5.2. Organizational characteristics of urban agriculture initiatives .................................................. 43
5.3. Relating organizational characteristics of urban agriculture initiatives to the scaling of urban
agriculture initiatives ......................................................................................................................... 46
5.4. Characteristics of leading individuals of urban agriculture initiatives ....................................... 46
5.5. Relating characteristics of leading individuals to the scaling of urban agriculture initiatives ... 47
5.6. Conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 48
6. Accelerators and barriers in the scaling process of urban agriculture initiatives: case study evidence
from the San Francisco - Metropolitan Area ...............................................................................................49
6.1. Accelerators in the scaling process of urban agriculture initiatives ........................................... 50
6.2. Barriers in the scaling process of urban agriculture initiatives .................................................. 50
6.3. Conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 52
7. Conclusion ...............................................................................................................................................53
7.1. Urban agriculture hype of reality? ............................................................................................. 54
7.2. Discussion ................................................................................................................................... 55
7.3. Future research recommendations ............................................................................................ 56
7.4. Policy recommendations ............................................................................................................ 56
References ...................................................................................................................................................58
Appendix ......................................................................................................................................................66

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1. Introduction

Sole Food Street Farms - Vancouver

Source: author (2014)
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1. Introduction
1.1. Societal problem
By 2050, the earth’s population is expected to grow to almost 10 billion people according to the
United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (United Nations, 2012). Thereby, an
increasing percentage of this population will be living in urban areas. While in 1950 only 30 per cent
of the world’s population was urban, by 2050, the world’s population residing in urban areas is
expected to swell to circa 66 per cent of the total world population. This historic shift in population
crossed a threshold in 2008, when more than 50 per cent of the urban population for the first time lived
in cities (United Nations, 2015).

This population growth will make the challenge of feeding the (urban) population in both developing and
developed countries much more difficult (Cargill, 2014). The United Nations Food and Agriculture
Organization (2011) suggested ‘that the most pressing and immediate issue facing the world
community is the problem of ensuring safe, adequate, timely, and affordable food for a growing and
increasing hungry population’ (as cited by Besthorn, 2013 pp. 187-188).

First, a growing number of people in cities will also see an increase in urban poverty and urban food
insecurity. Especially in developing countries in Africa and Asia, where the strongest urbanization will
take place in the future, ensuring food security for urban households are hampered by issues such as
high rates of unemployment, overcrowding and lack of infrastructure (FAO 2008; United Nations,
2015). However, cities in developed countries (Global North) are also increasingly confronted with
the problems of urban food security, normally associated with their poorer counterparts in the
Global South (Morgan, 2014). In the United States for example, USDA's Economic Research Service
(2009) estimates that 23.5 million people live in so-called urban food deserts. The often low-income
residents of these neighborhoods have limited access to healthy and affordable food, because fast
food restaurants and convenience stores are far more prevalent and sell less healthy, affordable food
options than the limited supermarkets and grocery stores do.

Second, the increase in food demand, also related to the increased welfare levels and changes in diets
(Godfray et al., 2010; Odegard & van der Voet, 2013) is putting increasing pressure on conventional
models of agriculture and natural resources (Foley et al., 2011). According to the United Nations
Environment Programme (2015), agriculture accounts for more than 70 percent of global freshwater
withdrawals, contributes for more than 30 percent of total global greenhouse gas emission, while 80
per cent of deforestation is caused by agriculture expansion. Based on these statistics, expanding
agriculture is thus neither possible nor desirable (Rizzo et al., 2013). To avoid growing pressure on
agriculture and natural resources, innovative solutions or approaches are thus necessary to feed the
growing (urban) population in the future in a sustainable way.

To avoid growing pressure on agriculture and natural resources, sustainable urban food production
has recently received a great deal of attention across a range of academic and professional
disciplines (Caplow, 2009). In 1987 the Brundtland Report first mentioned the importance of
sustainable development as a global task (Gibbs & Jonas, 2000). In this report one of the advices are
that governments should also consider supporting urban agriculture for feeding the urban
population: ‘It could become an important component of urban development and make more food
available to the urban poor (…) and urban agriculture can also provide fresher and cheaper produce,
more green space, the clearing of garbage dumps and recycling of household waste’ (United Nations,
1987, p.174).

In the past few years, this advice has captured the attention of many people in the Global North,
including that of urban farmers, city residents, entrepreneurs, non-profit organizations and city
governments and urban agriculture has moved from an issue at the edge of public discourse to one
at its center (Bohn and Viljoen, 2011). With as result, urban agriculture initiatives are flourishing in
cities in North America, Western Europe and developed parts of East Asia today.

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According to Van Der Schans et al. (2014), urban agriculture is for several reasons innovative
compared to more conventional models of agriculture. Firstly, it takes place in and around urban
areas instead of rural areas. Secondly, urban agriculture is generally characterized by shorter supply
chains and directed to the demand of nearby consumers instead of serving the global markets.
Thirdly, in line with these two reasons urban agriculture is integrated in a wider urban system instead
of being spatially segregated from the city which means that urban agriculture is also feeding on
cities, by using or reusing its urban green waste and waste energy (urban metabolism) and is
integrated in urban design and planning.

As part of the urban system, a growing number of actors, such as city governments and scholars (e.g.
Deelstra and Girardet, 2000; Mougeot, 2006; Wageningen UR 2015), see urban agriculture as an
effective strategy to tackle urban needs and improve the sustainability of the city as a whole. They
argue that urban agriculture can, for example, improve the health of the urban population by
increasing the availability of healthy food (people) and can create habitat for (agricultural)
biodiversity (people) and new local employment (profit) (WUR, 2015). Urban agriculture can thus
even be characterized as a social innovation because it acts like 'a novel solution to social problems
that is more effective, efficient and sustainable than existing solutions and for which the value
created accrues primarily to society as a whole rather than to private individuals', as defined by Phills
et al. (2009).

1.2. The research framework
There is a broad consensus amongst practitioners, activists and scholars that social innovations such
as urban agriculture only hold promise and could tackle problems entrenched in our societies (e.g.
food security, sustainability) when urban agriculture initiatives are able to continue in the future and
operate at the current or increased level (Gabriel, 2014; FAO, 2007; Nugent, 1999; Specht et al.
2014).

In line with the latter, this thesis research aims to get a first impression of the scaling of urban
agriculture initiatives and the mechanisms behind the process by conducting a case study research in
the San Francisco Metropolitan Area. Scaling referring to the expansion of social innovations, has
increasingly become a 'holy grail’ and an indicator for success in the field of social innovation (Davies
& Simon, 2013). The San Francisco Metropolitan Area is thereby one of the leading local food
producing areas in the world and hosting a growing number of urban agriculture initiatives since
2008 (Zigas, 2014), what makes it an interesting area to get some first understanding of scaling of
urban agriculture initiatives.

The central research question of this thesis research is therefore formulated as follows:

'To what extent do urban agriculture initiatives in the San Francisco Metropolitan Area scale and
what influences this?

Before it is possible to answer this question, it is first necessary to take a closer look to how urban
agriculture has been manifested in initiatives - actions at particular places (Fraisse, 2011) - in the
Global North today and second, to understand the scaling concept and the mechanisms behind this
process.
The growing literature on scaling in the social innovation field shows that scaling is a complex
process, manifested in different strategies, and the outcome of internal factors related to the
organization and leading individual(s) as well as the outcome of the interaction with the external
environment (Bloom & Smith,2010; Blundel & Lyon, 2014; Dees et al., 2004; Westley & Antadze,
2010).

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Therefore the following the sub-questions are formulated:

1. What is urban agriculture and how is it manifested in initiatives today?
2. How could urban agriculture initiatives scale and how is this process affected by the
characteristics of the organization, leading individuals and the environment according to the
scaling literature?
3. To what extent do urban agriculture initiatives in the San Francisco Metropolitan Area scale and
how is this related to the characteristics of the organization and the leading individuals of the
urban agriculture initiatives?
4. How does the environment facilitate or constrain the scaling process of urban agriculture
initiatives the San Francisco Metropolitan Area?

To answer these questions, two extensive literature studies have been conducted to understand
urban agriculture as a phenomenon and its initiatives today (question 1), as well as the scaling
concept within the social innovation context including the factors that affect this process (question
2). In addition, explorative fieldwork in the San Francisco Metropolitan Area from February until
Augustus 2014 was carried out to gain a better understanding of the development of urban
agriculture in the case study area. Subsequently, an exploratory case study of fourteen urban
agriculture initiatives in the San Francisco Metropolitan Area were conducted to obtain empirical
insight in the scaling of urban agriculture initiatives and the factors that affect this process (question
3 and 4). Building on these outcomes the central research question can be answered.

1.3. Relevance
1.3.1. Societal relevance
As mentioned above, urban agriculture is a response to social challenges and needs as feeding the
growing population and improving the sustainability of cities in the world. Investigating urban
agriculture and the scaling of urban agriculture initiatives in particular are thus relevant because it
provides more insights in the potential of urban agriculture in tackling these challenges and needs.

Furthermore, the subject of this thesis research is relevant in the context of growing concerns about
negative and environmental impacts of the dominant industrial global agri-food system. Issues such
as genetically-modified (GM) crop contamination, poor working conditions of farmers due to the
unprecedented power of consolidated corporations, a lack of transparency and trust between
producer and consumer and growing obesity levels have brought the dominant industrial global agri-
food system into a negative public spotlight (Jarosz, 2008; Odegard & van der Voet, 2013; Scrinis,
2013). In response, an increasing urban demand of alternative food products as seasonal and organic
produced grown ‘close to home’ is visible, especially in cities in the Global North (Donald & Blay-
Palmer, 2006; Jarosz, 2008).

And finally, studying the scaling of urban agriculture initiatives and the role of the external
environment is also relevant in line with the 'greening agenda’s’ of cities in the Global North today
and the growing attention of local planning departments and policy makers to investigate and
support urban agriculture practices (Tornaghi, 2014). In the Netherlands, the Green Deal has been
introduced in 2012 by the Dutch government together with the University of Wageningen and some
private stakeholders.
The aim of this Green Deal is to investigate and professionalize urban agriculture with a focus on
qualities of urban fallow, earn- and investment opportunities, closing loop recycling and
sustainability (Rijksoverheid, 2015). And today several Dutch cities, like Almere and Rotterdam,
experiment with urban agriculture and support different initiatives with subsidies (Nicis Institute
2012). Also, in cities across the United States and Canada a range of local governments efforts to
stimulate and support urban agriculture practices have emerged (Hodgson et al., 2011). The city of
Seattle for example introduced the P-Patch Program to oversee and manage community gardens
across the city (Seattle Department of Neighborhoods 2015).

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